ad.

Could all this be a coincidence? Could be.... Couldn't be! The beer
grew warm in my hand as I remembered. Every time I'd wished, really
really wished, something had happened. Now that I had time to think it
over I remembered that red rotor spinning madly past my eyes, that
horrible hatred and afterward, that sated sense of fulfillment....
Better have another beer and forget it, Pete. Better make it two
beers. Maybe three.

The High Hat sold me a lot more than two beers, or three. When I left
there, although I was walking a mental chalkline I had a little
trouble lighting a cigarette in the chill breeze. I didn't bother
going back to Art's. Art was all right, and there was no sense in
making trouble for a pal. Harry, now. He was a stinker. Go put the
needle in Harry, two blocks away.

While Harry was drawing the beer I walked string straight to the
jukebox, clicked in a quarter, and stalked back to the barstool. Turn
your back, Pete, just as though you didn't know perfectly well what
was going to happen. Now take a tasty sip of your beer, wait for the
noise to start.... Take a deep breath, now; Pete Miller, saviour of
man's sanity. I closed my eyes and pretended to be covering a yawn.

"Tubes," I whispered, "do your stuff. Blow that horn, Gabriel--go
ahead and--blow!"

The jukebox moaned as far as the first eight bars; I got my quarter
back from a puzzled Harry; I listened to Harry call his repairman; I
finished my beer; I got outside and almost around the corner before I
began laughing like a hyena; I got to bed snickering and went to sleep
the same way; and I woke up with a headache.

Hammering presses the next day I treated with the contempt of long
practice. One single theme kept rolling around like a pea in a
washtub; just what had happened to that television set and those
jukeboxes? And what had made a fairly new eight-cylinder almost
disintegrate, apparently on command? Agreed, that coincidence has a
mighty long arm, but hardly long enough to scratch its own elbow.
Forty years old and a superman? One way to find out. Let's go at this
cold sober. Let's scratch this shiny new rubber band until it snaps.

* * * * *

At three-thirty I was first in line at the timeclock, second out the
gate, and fourth or fifth to line up at the National Bar. "Aspirin and
ginger ale," I ordered, and got a knowing grin from the barkeep.
Laugh, buddy. You may think I feel bad now, but wait an